> If there's one thing that should be obvious from the war in Ukraine it is that relying on private companies is a bad idea for certain types of weapons.

I’m not following how that is a lesson from Ukraine. Their drones and missiles are made by private companies.

The true lesson i think is that in times of peace (or in times of wars of choice) procurement is dominated by excercises, lab tests, and design reviews. When you are doing that it is hard to tell apart the “good enough” from the “over engineered”. To every choice you can dream up a “counter”. Some real or imagined response or tactic by your enemy which would negate your system. And then your engineers have to design some counter-counter, or harden the system somehow. This leads to complexity which leads to high cost per individual weapon.

In contrast Ukraine is fighting for their existence. If they want to know if a new weapon is good enough, they send it to the front and try it. If it hurts the enemy more than it costs great. Order more. If it stops being effective, try something else. They are not picking the weapon system which will serve them for the next decade. They are picking what is available and effective today.

Different incentives, different opportunities which lead to different choices and different outcimes. But the difference is not if they are using private companies or not.

I think you are referencing it’s hugely profitable to not make artillery shells like that 500 million dollar factory we taxpayers paid for and got nothing from - in case anyone forgot https://www.propublica.org/article/general-dynamics-artiller...